Mail Queue monitoring is a big task for any organization running a busy mail server. Failure to do in a timely manner may lead a huge mail queue of SPAM mails or Bulk mail in the queue, which slows down the delivery of genuine mails in the queue. There are few third party tools and inbuilt command is available to monitor the mail queue in Qmail or Postfix mail server.

Qmail Server Mail Queue monitoring overview:

/var/qmail/bin/qmail-qstat will show current processed or unprocessed mail in the queue. This is a qmail inbuilt command.

/var/qmail/bin/qmail-qread will show a brief details of queued mails, like delivery address and mail type (remote/local).

These are only inbuilt command in Qmail for mail queue monitoring.

There are few third-party tools available for Qmail for mail queue monitoring.

qmHandle is a simple program which allows you to view and manage the Qmail message queue. The software will work on every Unix platform with Perl installed and Qmail installed.

qmHandle Installation:
# wget http://optusnet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/qmhandle/qmhandle-1.3.2.tar.gz
# tar -xvzf qmhandle-1.3.2.tar.gz
# cp qmHandle /usr/bin/

Now run the command as
# qmHandle

Now run the command as
# qmHandle

# qmail-remove -p your- string -v -r

This will yanked the mails instead of permanent delete.

Postfix Server Mail Queue monitoring overview:

List/Print current mail queue

# postqueue –p
# mailq

Flush the queue

# postqueue -f

Schedule immediate delivery of all mail that is queued for the named as domain.come.

# postqueue -s domain.com

TO delete all queue

# postsuper -d ALL

To delete a particular message

# postsuper -d messageid

Postfix inbuilt tools are pretty good for monitoring the mail Queue.

That’s all, for all my System Admin friends. I will keep posted for other useful article soon. Keep browsing :).